Chapter 359. The Upper Hand (Patreon)

The water had a peculiar buoyancy, like a mix between water and air. Maria fell faster than she’d anticipated, cutting through the false liquid like a missile. Soon the bottom of the lake, dark and covered in plants that shone whitish gray in her vital vision, was only a few feet away.

She passed right through it, slamming into a dry chamber. She glanced up at the ceiling. The lake. It was as though there was a pane of glass keeping the lake away–a bizarre one that permitted fast-moving objects like herself to pass through.

The floor and walls of the spotless, stark room had no features. It was as though she were stuck in a prison cell, one large enough to fit several hoverglosses, about ten feet wide by twenty feet long, with a relatively low ceiling.

Not so much a prison as quarantine, she realized, rising from her crouch to a poised, straight-backed stance. She’d stashed her azure diadem in her void storage, so she appeared to any onlookers as exactly what she was–a lich.

It’s in your hands now, Clara.

—

Clara Belvaire’s hands trembled slightly as Maria Sezakuin showed up on one of the glosscams, her body flagged by the surveillance system. The security room buzzed with activity–everyone here was briefed on the nature of their expected visitor. It was the most excitement the people here had probably had in months, if not years. Most of them were stuck in Compound 89 for several month terms, unable to leave the premises or at least the mountains.

Quick as a whip, the woman plunged into the lake and slammed into the deck of the pressurized entrance chamber. The room was almost completely devoid of oxygen and would be hostile to anyone who made it past the bitingly cold water of the lake. Most people wouldn’t be in a state to realize, the fall from the lake’s surface to the floor fatal for the unenhanced and unprepared.

“Calamity level,” General Kelvanne said softly. The three star shook his head at a projection filling the wall. It was provided information on anything that entered the entrance chamber. Normally, it displayed equipment health for supply cars, but it could also show other information, like affinity readings and fatefulness measures. It was a highly sophisticated system and under active development. It was good enough to be an export to the East.

Detected: DEATH CONSTRUCT

Class: NECRO

Type: UNIQUE

Fatefulness: SOVEREIGN

Assessment: An unknown, unique necromantic entity with exceptional detected durability and traces of ascendant energy empowering its body. Fluctuations of Death energy throughout the construct suggest near-human intelligence. Equipment recognized as high-grade auto-camouflage armor from Iritas Industries, likely obtained through underground channels. High levels of affinity readings for Death, End, and Sun. The necromantic entity’s bodice is likely constructed with intricate arrays that embed abilities from powerful practitioners. Be wary of fire elementalist attacks. An aberrant fatefulness reading suggests that the necromantic entity is tied to a master of superlative importance.

Threat Level: CALAMITY

Clara read the report and shuddered. Calamity level, and the assessment didn’t even register the Eldemari’s full power. She couldn’t blame the system–she didn’t think it had ever encountered anything like the lich-ified Maria Sezakuin, much less a normal lich. Near-human intelligence–it was laughable. The assessment didn’t even seem to consider that the lich could actually use End affinity.

“Guess the Skai’aren likes minions that are easy on the eyes,” one of the practitioners commented, his gray eyes fixed on a blown-up glosscam recording of the lich’s body.

The Eldemari looked different, Clara realized. It was subtle, but her eyes were slightly more slanted, her eyebrows thinner, her lips fuller, her nose sharper. Why are you surprised? she thought. Of course she’s not going to waltz in here looking like her actual self. Dunai must have changed her appearance.

“Fitson,” Kelvanne bellowed, “shut up if you don’t have anything useful to contribute.” He sucked in a breath and pointed to the live glosscam recording. “This is an ascendant’s construct. I don’t care if you consider the Skai’aren only half an ascendant for his brief stint in Eternity. We’ve all seen the briefing materials of his abilities during the war for the Ho’ostar Peninsula. Can anyone tell me his threat level?”

It was practically a rhetorical question–any of them could. Clara had joined the entire compound’s staff for briefs on Ian Dunai over the past two days. Over and over, it was hammered into their heads why it was considered such a relief for him to ascend and leave this world behind.

The gray-eyed peak Cloud practitioner, Fitson, snorted. “Apocalypse level, Sir.”

“Right. And he sends to us a construct just one level lower. Calamity.” His eyes roved over the room. “Do you all think he’s still fucking apocalypse level? Huh?”

The room was dead silent.

Kelvanne slammed his hand on the table. A mug of coffee nearly tipped over, saved only by a water elementalist stabilizing the liquid within it. “This construct? I think it’s a lich. Do you all understand what that means?”

No one answered. The general’s words were oddly hypnotic, delivered with a gripping intensity.

“Forget the assessment. That construct is unkillable. Smart as a person. Utterly loyal to its master. Capable of suicide maneuvers. And likely possesses the powers of a practitioner if it was made from the body and soul of one. This one clearly seems to have at least the powers of an End and Sun practitioner. And do you remember who disappeared with Dunai? Conveniently, someone with an End and Sun affinity of extraordinary power.” He looked around the room again. “Anyone?”

Clara felt her stomach rising to her throat. I guess that’s the power of peak Beginning.

“Belvaire, you seem to have an idea. Come and share your thoughts with the class.”

For a moment, Clara panicked as she felt the necromantic oath constricting her throat, preventing her from divulging the lich’s identity, but that cut off almost immediately. Dunai is watching now, she realized, suppressing a shudder.

“The Eldemari,” she stated.

The general nodded sharply. “If we were welcoming someone with the Eldemari’s affinities to this facility, what would be the normal protocol?”

The second highest ranked person in the room, the one star General Bellestoy, knocked on the table. “No entry at all.”

“That’s right. Why?”

“Peak End,” Bellestoy said, running his fingers through close-cropped salt and pepper hair. “Makes oaths ineffective. Of course, the fact that she’s here as an undying lich complicates matters further. Maybe she has her full oath breaking capabilities, maybe not. We have to assume the worst case scenario, though.” He sighed. “Ultimately, all this is irrelevant. She’s the envoy sent by the Skai’aren. If the ascendant wanted to destroy us, he could send an army of constructs our way and wipe us out. He doesn’t need anything we have, with the exception of the classified subject.”

General Kelvanne smiled wolfishly. “Well spoken. It puts us in a precarious position. Does anyone else care to weigh in?”

Clara had her own thoughts on the matter but didn’t feel comfortable voicing them. She just wanted them to get on with this so she could greet Maria, send her away somewhere with any excuse that made sense, spin some story about another construct coming, and then greet Achemiss’s real representative. Every second they spent gabbing, Achemiss’s construct might arrive. Clara didn’t know what would happen if it saw Maria–that would depend on the nature of the construct. Though she suspected the construct would be piloted from afar by Achemiss himself.

Achemiss seeing Maria was a situation that needed to be avoided at all costs.

Suddenly, Clara felt herself possessed by the need to speak. The necromantic oath. It was like she was back in the assembly hall.

“It’s a rude gesture,” she posited. “Disrespectful. The Skai’aren should have sent a weaker construct if he just intended to obtain the rift information and learn about the classified subject. Instead he sent a lich potentially powerful enough to wipe a city off the map.”

Why am I saying this? Clara wondered, her mind racing, trying to understand Dunai’s intentions.

Kelvanne’s smile fell slightly, his eyes glinting in the low light of the various projections spanning the walls. He was looking at her differently.

Like someone worth listening to, she realized.

“Exactly,” he agreed, “which is why I think, if anything, sending the lich is a test.”

“Sir…” Bellestoy interjected, frowning, “even if that’s true, how does that change our response?”

“If I may?” Clara said, once more bowing to compulsion. She gave Kelvanne a questioning look.

“Dr. Belvaire, go ahead.”

Suddenly, she understood without needing the oath’s prodding. When she spoke, it was through a combination of her own will and Dunai’s. “If the Skai’aren can create a lich, he can doubtlessly create constructs that he can sense from over a long distance, ones that are limited in strength. I think there will be another construct coming, one puppeted directly by the Skai’aren. As for the lich…” Clara paused for effect. She had the whole room’s attention. “Well, she’s already here. And we know who she is. That means we also know how to hurt her. Lich or not, I don’t think she’d do anything aggressive to Sere. She should still care for her son and the fate of Selejo. She has a political mind–she’ll understand the threat without it ever being spoken.”

“Why send her at all, though?” Bellestoy asked, frowning. “If her being here is a test, it seems like a pointless one.”

“It’s a warning not to renege on our promises,” Kelvanne reasoned.

“That,” Clara agreed, “as well as a practical move. The Skai’aren is interested in the classified subject.” Clara fully understood the plan by now. It was cunning, though risky, dependent on what construct–or constructs–Achemiss sent. “If he decides that he must obtain the classified subject, the Eldemari is here to safeguard its transfer. With her here, could you reasonably say that you could stop her?”

There was very little that could threaten Compound 89. There were extensive, layered arrays to shut down Remorse practitioner skills, which was a primary reason why Clara wasn’t overly worried about a Remorse practitioner skimming her traitorous thoughts. Additionally, the material structure of the compound was highly resistant to fire and concentrated beams of light, had water removal systems to handle water elementalist torrents, and was anchored in materials that earth elementalists couldn’t control. The compound was divided such that they could isolate entire sections of it, suck out all the air, and create a vacuum where even the most talented air elementalist would falter.

Dark practitioners could still pose a problem, but in a locked chamber without air, they’d eventually succumb. And outside of someone like Ian Dunai, Life or Death practitioners weren’t really a concern.

But a peak End practitioner like the Eldemari could turn their own arrays against them. As Bellestoy said earlier, peak End was a damning strike against the lich that would normally mean no entry.

Kelvanne sighed. “Killing her wouldn’t be enough. I don’t know how the respawn mechanic works for liches, unfortunately. Can they only resurrect by their phylactery? Or can they revive at the place of their death? Does anyone here know for sure?” He looked at Clara expectantly.

He was right to–she was the supposed necromancy expert given her leadership in the Infinity Loop project, not that most people in the room knew it was related to necromancy.

She just shook her head. “There have been no recorded liches for hundreds of years–they’re practically a myth. The Skai’aren must have learned how to make one in Eternity. And given the mysterious capabilities of ascendant energy, who can really say what the limitations of the lich’s resurrection are?”

Kelvanne sucked on his teeth. “Then we’ll have to assume that she can respawn at will in the vicinity of her death. If she decided to attack this facility, the only way to stop her would be to incapacitate her, but she has excellent mental defenses and a body that needs nothing to sustain itself.”

“Which is why we should take a diplomatic route,” Clara said. “I’ll bring her inside, into a peripheral chamber, keep her company, and then leave when the construct controlled by the Skai’aren himself arrives. Ultimately, the test is to gauge our trust.”

Bellestoy grit his teeth. “We’re between a rock and a hard place.”

“We don’t have many choices,” Kelvanne said, holding up a hand, “which is the real message here. He has the upper hand, and sending Maria is how he asserts it. It’s far more devious a strategy than I ever expected from the Skai’aren, given all psychological profiles of him before his ascent.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “We all know that things aren’t actually so simple, but it’s best to let him believe he’s in a superior position. At least for now.

“Belvaire–Fitson and Bellestoy will escort you to the entrance chamber to entertain our guest.” He smiled grimly. “Any objections?”

Silence, once again.

[ mind gamezzzzz~ lol. thanks for reading!

also, if anyone is interested in beta reading thoroughly edited books that my company, timeless wind, is publishing, join the timeless wind publishing server and ask to be a beta reader! it's a help to us and also you get free books (as pdf or epub). and since i only publish books that i personally enjoy, you're getting books curated by me. up and coming releases that could use betas include godclads 1, pygilist 1, ends of magic 2, and in the nearish future virtuous sons 3, wish upon the stars 3, ghost of the truthseeker 3 (so many book 3s!), and nameless sovereign 1. all we ask of betas is to just read through the book and point out if you see any mistakes or formatting issues. ]